Former Adelaide resident suspect in scandal

Page Tools

The mother of a former Adelaide resident now at the centre of the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal has spoken out after receiving vicious emails calling for the torture of her son.

Interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, who returned to the US from Adelaide after the September 11 terror attacks, has been named as a suspect in the graphic allegations of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.

Speaking from her home in the Philadelphia suburbs, Stefanowicz's mother Jean Campbell said she was sure her son was innocent.

But she said could barely stand to read emails she had received from ill-wishers since the abuse scandal surfaced.

"They want him tortured. They want him killed," she said.

Stefanowicz, 34, was living and working as an information technology recruiter in Adelaide, where he was engaged to an Australian woman, when the September 11 terror attacks occurred.

His mother said he called his Navy Reserves recruiter from Australia and returned home within a month.

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Stefanowicz stood out growing up in Telford, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia, where he was the basketball centre and a member of student government.

After college in Maryland, he started a watercraft company in Florida, joined the Navy Reserves, then left for Australia.

On his return, he spent around a year full-time with the Reserves and then joined CACI International, a Virginia-based defence firm, his mother said.

"I wasn't thrilled about him going to the most dangerous city in the world," she said.

"I asked him why he was going and he said: it's my duty."

Stefanowicz became one of at least 20,000 employees of at least 60 private security firms working in Iraq - civilian contractors who have been described as both modern-day mercenaries and the military version of outsourcing.

While seven low-level military police have been arrested over the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the Army's investigating officer concluded military intelligence and civilian contractors "were either directly or indirectly responsible".

Army Major-General Antonio Taguba said Stefanowicz "allowed and/or instructed MPs, who were not trained in interrogation techniques, to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' which were not authorised".

The Pentagon has referred at least one civilian's case to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, but officials refused to identify the civilian involved.